This story appears in the
January 2003 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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The National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) wants to pour
its new American Formula for Growth into the gas tank of the
economy. The NCOE report exhorts policymakers to look at political
and economic decisions made over the past 40 years that have
catapulted the entrepreneur-led U.S. economy forward for
models.
The NCOE recommendations contain kernels members of Congress are
already chewing on. Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO), top Republican on
the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, agrees
heartily with the report's call to address the "early
stage capital gap." Bond introduced the Small Business
Investment Company Capital Access Act in 2002, which would allow
tax-exempt entities to invest in Small Business Investment
Companies (SBICs) without incurring unrelated taxable income.
Although Bond's bill did not pass last year, Craig Orfield,
Bond's spokesman, says a bill reauthorizing the SBA in 2003 may
serve as a convenient vehicle for amendments such as Bond's
SBIC Capital Access Act.
The report recommends a number of other measures in five areas:
creating financial markets to fund entrepreneurial growth companies
(EGCs), providing R&D and intellectual property protection,
expanding the supply of technically competent workers, opening new
markets and easing entry for EGCs, and establishing a robust and
dependable infrastructure.
Some of the agenda items sound a little tone-deaf, though. One
urging deregulation of key industries "to encourage entry by
entrepreneurial companies" seems to ignore the 1996
Telecommunications Act, which opened the door to a crush of
companies that ultimately crashed and burned under the act's
guidance.
Stephen Barlas is a freelance business reporter who covers
the Washington beat for 15 magazines.